Incredible Iceland— Reykjavik-Day 2
Most everyone else in our party slept in a little bit after getting back at almost midnight from our Golden Circle tour with Birkir. I on the other hand, love it when a ship overnights in a port so that I can get up early the next day and walk through the city. (One of my best photo walks ever was in Québec last October when we overnighted on Summit). More and more cruise lines are doing this (overnighting in cities) and you can get off and on whenever you want all night long. This was a good day to do that but I really missed that early morning golden light I had when we were in Edinburgh and Dublin.
I got up at 5:00 am and headed out to walk the seaside walkway into downtown Reykjavik but the light outside was already like 10:30 in the morning as you can see from my pics. I got some decent stuff and then headed back to the ship to shower and meet Kathleen and others in our group to take a taxi back into downtown to see some more of the city. My pics and their captions will pretty much tell the tale on that. Don’t forget to click on the first one and view them as a slide show. And if you want to see more, check them out on Flickr by clicking here.
We were back on the ship by 2:00 pm and Reflection set sail for Akureyri at 3:00. It was a pretty great day considering how little sleep was involved. Thursday, I will post all about our travels in Akureyri, in the north. And we cross the Arctic Circle!
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- Hallgrímskirkja—this church dominates the Reykjavik skyline
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- Sun Voyager—Huge 1990 stainless-steel sculpture of a boat by Jón Gunnar Árnason, set on granite beside the sea.
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- Reykjavik’s version of the bridge in Paris
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- The green lock kind of drew my lens like a magnet
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- Harpa Concert Hall
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- Noticed this ship coming in. Not sure what it was.
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- Turned out to be a small cruise ship. We met some people who were onboard later at coffee.
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- Sun Voyager from a different angle
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- A sculpture along the walkway. Looked different on every side
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- See what I mean?
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- Viking Sky coming into the harbor. This is the ship that had the engine failiure earlier this year.
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- The Hofdi House built in 1909, the home of Icelandic poet Einar Benediktsson also hosted an iconic political summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbatsjov
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- The lupine was everywhere and in full bloom
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- The end of my walk. Almost back to the ship.
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- Out later with Kathleen saw this photo shoot in front of Hallgrímskirkja
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- Hallgrímskirkja up close
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- Inside Hallgrímskirkja we found a small chamber orchestra rehearsing
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- Inside Hallgrímskirkja Cassie and Jamie look at the ceiling of this magnificent church
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- Above the altar in Hallgrímskirkja
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- I love taking photos of artists as work.
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- Such great expressions
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- See what I mean
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- Outside of Hallgrímskirkja is this incredible statue of Leif Erickson
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- Kathleen found a friend. Hey, I have to take these tourist photos once in a while.
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- Great street decoration
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- This is a real place. Seriously.
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- I never did find out who these statues represent.
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- A closeup of Harpa Concert Hall to end our stay. We went inside but the photos didn’t come out as well as I would have liked.
This is a picture I took yesterday because I found these (photo above) when I was looking for something else that I wanted to take with us tomorrow when we fly to Edinburgh. What you are seeing is the SeaPass card (combo room key and onboard credit card for you non-cruisers) from every cruise we have ever taken (except the one on Carnival we don’t tell anyone about). Starting in the upper left with our first Alaskan cruise on the old Holland America Westerdam in 2000 all the way through out Fall Foliage cruise last October on Celebrity’s Summit. Those SeaPass cards represent a lot of great times with a lot of great people.
Since I started writing on these pages last month I have had a few people ask me if we are all about cruising. They want to know if we just help clients plan cruises. Nothing could be further from the truth. We at Expedia are a full-service travel agency. On our door is the slogan, “We plan, you pack.” We do have cruise ship in our name and Kathleen and I do take a lot of cruises but we have traveled on land in Europe and all over the USA. Plus, with most of our cruises we usually spend quite a few days either before or after the cruise exploring the city or region we are leaving from on the cruise we are taking.
For instance, we are doing an 11-day cruise from Dublin, Ireland to other ports in Ireland and spending four days in Iceland. But before we get on Celebrity’s Reflection, we will spend four days in Edinburgh, almost a week in Leeds, England visiting good friends and three days in Dublin before we embark. So when a client comes in and doesn’t want a cruise but does want a land trip, we can do it all. We can book you with a tour company who will take you everywhere in the country or region you have in mind. Or I can plan an entire trip just for you.
Last year I had two clients who came in during the spring asking me to help them plan a European trip for their families last summer. One wanted a four country tour with a cruise to the Greek Isles right in the middle of the land visits. The other asked for an eight city, 34-day tour by train, plane, rail and automobile. We arranged flights, rail tickets, hotels, dinner reservations, day trips and guided tours all over Europe. If you would like to see the entire tour, you can 
If this is the kind of vacation you are looking for, we’re the people to talk to. I love planning stuff like this. BTW: This is not the kind of plan you are going to get from an online or big box travel agency where you talk to a different person every time you call. And believe me, this planning took about two months and countless e-mails, phone calls and texts getting things reserved and set up. For me, it was just fun. For the clients it was a great time…at least that’s what they told me when they got back.